Broken Spirit
by BobbyThat'sNotYourPurse
Summary: The Avatar wasn't reborn into Aang, it skipped him. It was years after Roku's death, after the decimation of the Air Nomads, that the new Avatar was born. Danny, the descendant of an escaped Air Nomad, is the new Avatar. He has had a hard life, one that has left him loathing his status. He is soon forced to accept his role when Water Tribe refugees come to the town he calls home.


Summary: The Avatar wasn't reborn into Aang, instead it laid dormant, waiting for the right time to come back into the world. It was years after the death of Roku, after the decimation of the Air Nomads, that the new Avatar was born. Danny, the child of a child of an escaped Air Nomad, is the new Avatar. He has had a hard, tumultuous life, one that has left him loathing his status. However, he is forced to accept his role when Southern Water Tribe refugees come to the town he calls home.

* * *

Prologue:

The New Avatar

* * *

Maddie let out one final scream as the midwife pulled the wailing baby out of her. She fell back on the bad she had just given birth on, her breath coming out in heavy pants. She was in a state of exhaustion when she felt her husband, Jack, squeeze her hand gently, far more gently than the crushing grip she had on his moments earlier. The mother looked into his eyes and they smiled at each other.

The midwife walked to her side, having wrapped the baby in an Earth Kingdom green blanket. She smiled at the parents, holding the baby out to them. "It's a boy." Maddie took the baby softly into her arms. He had stopped crying and was sleeping soundly. She smiled at her son, brushing a hand over the shock of black hair on the top of his head.

"Oh, Jack..." Maddie's husband wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

The midwife watched the two for a while, taking in the beautiful sight before her. Finally, she interrupted the scene as Jack took the boy, "What would you like to name him?"

Maddie's hand went to her left shoulder. She rubbed the small, blue arrow tattoo underneath the sleeve of her dress. How badly she wanted to give her son an Air Nomad name, a name that would connect him to their people, but her father knew the dangers that would present when he gave her an Earth Kingdom name. She knew she would have to do the same for the sake of her son. A tear appeared in the corner of her eye and Jack was quick to put his hand on her cheek and wipe it away with his thumb. Maddie put her hand on the back of his and looked him in the eye again. He gave her an understanding nod. Jack turned to the midwife.

"We'd like to name him Daniel," He said before turning back to his wife and smiling a goofy smile, "We can call him "Danny" for short."

* * *

A five year old Danny looked up at the jar his mother had put on the top shelf in the kitchen. He had seen her put sweets inside. He wanted the sweets inside. The boy jumped up, reaching for the edge of the counter. He barely got off the ground.

Danny pouted grumpily. He jumped harder. He didn't get much higher. He grumbled under his breath. The boy looked at the jar of sweets again. He stuck his hands up and started moving them back and forth, trying to beckon the jar towards himself. The child felt something stir inside him as he kept trying to pull the jar down. The jar scooted a little toward the edge. Danny's smile split his face in two.

The boy began to gesture faster, the stirring feeling never leaving him. With each movement the jar moved closer and closer to the edge. When Danny saw a little bit of the bottom peek over the edge of the shelf he moved even faster. The jar got closer, closer, and closer. The jar was almost halfway over the edge and Danny eagerly beckoned it once more. The jar began to tilt.

"Danny!"

The boy jumped out of skin at the sound of his mother's voice. The woman ran to him and scooped him into her arms as the jar fell, crashing and breaking against the ground.

Maddie's heart hammered against her ribs as she clutched her son to her chest. She looked at the shattered jar, its contents spilled across the floor and mixing with the shards of clay. She moved her gaze to the five year old clutching her shirt in fear of punishment. The woman knew she had pushed that jar flat against the wall, so that meant. She craned her neck to look at the wall. None of the stones were jutting out. That ruled out him having Jack's Earthbending, and there wasn't anything around he could have used to pull the jar to the edge. That left only one possibility.

Danny's mother knelt down and set him on the floor. She pried his hands from her blouse and held them in hers. "Danny, look at me," she spoke softly. The boy did as he was told and looked into her eyes. "Would you like to see something neat?" Scared as he was, Danny nodded.

Maddie gave him a small smile and stood. She turned to face the shattered pot and took a stance. She moved her arms and hands in a swift motion. The wind was suddenly alive in the room, lifting the shattered clay and lychee nuts into the air. She kept moving her arms and even span to add more flair to her performance. Her display ended with one final turn and sweep of her arms, causing the broken jar and nuts to separate, the nuts landing on the counter and the jar in a receptacle in the corner of the room.

The woman looked at her son. She smiled widely at the look on his face, one of pure wonder. She knelt next to him again.

"Would you like to learn to Airbend?"

* * *

Danny was nine years old when everything took a turn for the worse.

"I'm just telling the truth, dork," Dash, the resident bully, taunted, "Your parents are freaks for believing in all that spirit crap."

Normally, Danny would have ignored him, but this time around, the boy had cornered the Airbender with two of his friends. Dash and his friends were taunting and teasing him relentlessly.

Danny took a deep breath through clenched teeth, remembering what his mother had taught him. Airbenders only use violence as a last resort. He chanted this in his head over and over, but the taunting and insults grew louder and louder. Danny squeezed his eyes shut and covered his ears in a futile attempt to stop them. He wished his sister was there to help him, but she was shopping with their father on the other side of town. He tried to stay calm, tried desperately, but he was only nine.

"Shut up!" Danny raised his a pushed Dash. Something stirred inside him as he did so and he felt the ground shake along with a burst of heat, followed by the boys screaming and a chorus of gasps. The boy opened his eyes to see what happened.

Dash's friends were laid out on the ground, clutching their chests in pain, and Dash was furiously patting the scorch marks on his shirt. Danny looked around. Everyone was looking at him in shock, whispering to one another. As he looked to his sides, he noticed the missing bricks from the walls he had been pinned against. He turned his gaze downward. The bricks were scattered across the ground in front of him. There was a warm sensation in his hands, warmer than the rest of his body. His breath came out in short, shallow gasps and he did the only thing could think to do.

He ran home.

* * *

His family moved towns after that. They left in the middle of the night, carrying what they could and Jack used his Earthbending to collapse their house.

It was a year later and Danny's family had settled in a town far away from their previous one. His mother explained to him and Jazz what had happened, what Danny was and why they had to move. If wasn't scared for her family before, she was then, it was dangerous enough for them being Airbenders, but having the Avatar for her son...

Maddie had resolved herself after they left, resolved that she would train her son more, that she would make sure he mastered Airbending as soon as possible and to find him other bending masters. She resolved that she would raise Danny to be the Avatar, to be the one to save the world.

The mother stood in front of the window, watching her son play with his new friend Haru. She smiled at them, happy that they were able to rebuild their lives. Her joy was cut short by shouts and cries of surprise from down the street. The boys stopped playing and Maddie leaned out of window, looking to the sounds.

Maddie's eyes widened at the sight of Komodo Rhinos, Fire Nation soldiers riding atop their backs. "Danny, get inside, now!" Her son didn't hesitate to follow her orders and ran inside. "Haru, go home!" Before the boy could do anything, Maddie pulled herself back inside and closed the window.

"Maddie, what's wrong?" Jack asked as he and Jazz came into the room.

"It's Fire Nation, Jack!"

The man didn't need to hear anything else, he knelt by his children, putting a hand on their shoulders. "Kids, you're going to need to-"

A knock at the door interrupted him. He and his wife gave each other worried looks. Jack slowly moved to the door and cracked it open. A Fire Nation soldier stood on the other side. "Can I help you?"

The soldier narrowed his eyes as he spoke, "We've received word that a dangerous individual may be in the area." He put his hand on the door. "We're going to need to search your home sir."

As the soldier forced the door open, Jack quickly took an Earthbending stance and thrust forward. A spire of rock shot from the floor, hitting the soldier in the face and throwing him back into the street. "Maddie, take the kids and run!" Jack ran out of the house after the soldier.

Maddie wanted to help her husband, especially when she heard the sounds of fighting just outside her door, but she did what he said. The mother grabbed her kids by their wrists and pulled them upstairs. She threw open her closet and took a satchel full of scrolls and money before grabbing the wooden staff at the back. She put the bag over her shoulder and the staff on her back before grabbing her kids again and going back down the stairs. The sounds of fighting had gotten louder and Maddie spared a look out of the still open front door.

Jack had rallied the other Earthbenders behind him and together they were fighting back against the Fire Nation soldiers. Jack kicked the ground, a rock spire firing from the ground and striking the soldier in front of him in the stomach. He dodged a burst of flame from a Firebender and back handed him, knocking their helmet off. The father grabbed the sides of the Firebender's head and broke his nose with a ferocious headbutt. He turned back toward his house, his wife catching his gaze. He gave her a nod of determination before rejoining the fight.

A tear slipped from Maddie's eye as Jack disappeared into the crowd. Her grip on her children tightened and she pulled them through the house and out the back door.

* * *

Danny, now 12, sat in a chair in the house his mother had gotten them two years ago. He was shirtless and Jazz was knelt on the ground at his side. On the ground next to her was a bowl of light blue ink, which she dipped the needle in her hand in. She spoke as she pricked the skin of his bicep with the ink covered needle.

"I'm proud of you, baby brother." She smiled at him. "The youngest person to become an Airbending master."

Danny chuckled, "Thanks, Jazz."

"Sometimes I wish I was born a Bender," Jazz said, a minute amount of tension in her voice, "to be able to do what you, Mom, and Dad can."

At the mention of their father, Danny deflated slightly. Jazz dipped the needle in the ink again. "Do you think he'd be proud of me, Jazz?"

His sister gave him a somber smile. "Of course he would, Danny." She continued pricking his skin. "In fact, if he were here, Dad probably wouldn't be able to shut up about how proud he is." She gave a small chuckle.

Her brother joined her. "Yeah, he'd probably be in the kitchen baking something to celebrate." The two of them laughed lightly, silence taking over afterward. "I miss him, Jazz."

"We all do, Danny."

The room was filled with a somber silence for the next two hours, the only sound being Jazz pecking Danny's bicep.

Jazz sighed and set the needle in the now almost empty bowl. She smiled at her brother. "There, all done."

Danny lifted his arm slightly and looked at his arm. The pale skin of his arm now had a light blue arrow starting from his elbow and stretching up to cover his shoulder. He was now an official Airbending master. "One down three more to go, right?"

Before Jazz could respond, the door to the house was flung open. Their mother rushed in and slammed it closed, dropping the bar on the wall into slots on the door, barring it. Her kids ran into the room and she turned to them. The look on her face told them all they needed to know. The family scrambled around the house, grabbing what they would need.

Jazz was coming down the stairs, stuffing scrolls into the bag on her shoulder, when the front door was blown off its hinges. It bounced across the floor and Jazz barely managed to flatten herself against the wall when door embedded itself in the stairs. The girl looked at the doorway.

A man with green hair and a green goatee, dressed in Fire Nation armor stood where the door used to be. He looked at her with a sadistic mirth in his eyes. "Hello, prey." His lips curled into a cruel smile.

Jazz made a move to run to the back of the house but the man grabbed her, causing her to scream. Danny and Maddie ran into the room, bags over their shoulders and a staff in the mother's hand. They were about to attack until Jazz shouted, "No! Just run!" She stomped on the man's foot. He cried out but didn't let her go.

Maddie fought against her maternal instincts to jump in and free her daughter and pulled Danny behind her out of the back of the house. They ran through the forest until Maddie stopped. She could fight herself any longer. She looked at Danny and put her hands on his shoulders. "Danny, I'm going to get your sister, you stay here!" She turned to run back to the house but stopped herself. She looked at the staff in her hands and turned back to her son. The mother put the staff in his hands. "If I'm not back by sunrise, you run, okay? I you see anyone else coming through these woods, you run, got it?" Danny nodded, fear evident in his eyes. With that Maddie ran back to the house.

* * *

Danny looked out his window at the ocean. He was shirtless again, though this time for a different reason.

An Earth Kingdom woman opened the door to Danny's room, placing a few metal chips in the jar next to it. "Thank you for your time, Danny." She smirked and closed the door behind her. Danny didn't pay her any mind, he'd gotten used to how his recurring customers acted.

The Airbender closed the window, making sure nobody could see into the room. He walked to his closet and opened it. He reached in and pulled out the staff his mother had given him six years ago. He had a few hours until June showed up for their session, he could practice until then.

The man began to move around the room, running through the exercises he once went through with his mother. She had made it evident that he would have to keep practicing to "keep himself sharp" and that "even the Avatar should practice the basics from time to time."

He scowled when he remembered his title. Being the Avatar had only brought him pain and misery, it's why he lost his father, his mother, his sister, everyone. He refused to learn the other elements out of spite, if the world needed an Avatar maybe it shouldn't have taken everything from him.

He span the staff in a circle before slamming the end of it into the floor. The resulting wind jostled everything in the room. He panted, sweat rolling down his back. Danny put the staff back in the closet and made his way to the bathroom so he could clean himself. After all, most of his clients like to make him sweat themselves.

* * *

A/N: I know, I know, I should be working on my other stories, but I just binge watched the entirety of Avatar and this idea wouldn't leave me alone.

Let me clarify some things about this world of Avatar.

1\. The timeline is the same up to a certain point, except that Aang was skipped over for being Avatar, so he was a casualty of the Air Nomad Genocide.  
2\. There will be other Danny Phantom characters in here, I'm sure that you all recognized Skulker.  
3\. Danny is 18 and the younger characters will have their ages adjusted accordingly to make everyone legal, despite the legal age in Avatar being 16, I just wanted to be safe here.  
4\. To keep themselves hidden the surviving Air Nomads dialed it back on their tattoos, putting only one arrow in an easily concealed place.  
5\. I'm making some big changes to how events played out, as you will see in the next chapter.  
6\. And yes, Danny is prostituting himself.


End file.
